Playstation 2 Online at OnlineConsoles.com

Whenever GT4 does come out it will be a cause for celebration and this time it will be easier to share the joy with some friends. While there is no current online support, there will be LAN support. With the new slimmed down Atkins dieted SCPH-7000 with built in Ethernet this will become much easier in the future. We will have to wait until next year for some announcements about the online support for GT4, as cryptic as that may be, but at least we can now throw our new PS2s into a skinny bag and get it on in some group races.

Whenever GT4 does come out it will be a cause for celebration and this time it will be easier to share the joy with some friends. While there is no current online support, there will be LAN support. With the new slimmed down Atkins dieted SCPH-7000 with built in Ethernet this will become much easier in the future. We will have to wait until next year for some announcements about the online support for GT4, as cryptic as that may be, but at least we can now throw our new PS2s into a skinny bag and get it on in some group races.

Bah! Back in the day, we hauled our ENTIRE COMPUTERS over to someone's house for some LAN gaming! Not some skinny-ass, anorexic console! Oh no, I'm talking 19" CRT monitors, full-size towers, the works! And we LIKED IT!

carried um 10 miles up hill in the snow aswell?

Producer Kazunori Yamauchi stated that the feature was almost done, but since the rest of the game is basically finished, they want to go ahead and release the game without the online component for now.

It figures they won't use the hdd since they can't even add online support. They couldn't establish their network coding in time for the release because they want to push the releas date. Their priority is not to add online and much less the HDD, it is to release the game in time for Holiday season.

Some feedback from a developer

Mon, September 06 2004 - 6:44 PM
by: Gabe

I’ve got a great letter here from a developer. I’m not going to say where he works but you’ve probably played his games.


Hi Gabe,

Most of us in the industry are as puzzled about these release schedules as you are. Why would you release games in such a way as to get them buried under a landslide of other great games? From a money-making standpoint, this makes about as much sense as releasing the pilot of a new TV series during the SuperBowl. No TV producer in their right mind would ever do that. However, this happens every year in our industry and there's really only one reason I can think of. It's the same reason so many sequels get made for games -- people like to play it safe. And it drives most of us in the trenches mad.

Now I know what you're thinking "What? How is 'getting your title buried in a shit heap of other games so that it doesn't sell nearly as well as it could have' playing it safe?" I have a theory on this that I call "The Christmas Decoration Phenomenon." As near as I can tell, there are legions of trolls that sit in marketing offices all day crunching numbers. They are really sensitive to patterns, even ones that the normal human eye is incapable of seeing. It would seem that, at some point a few years back, some clever marketing troll said to himself "hmm... a lot of games sell around Christmas, because people go and buy toys for kids at Christmas. I know! If we sell our game at Christmas, we'll make tons of money!" And it worked. For years, it seemed that the maxim was "lets push this game and get it out the door at Christmas." And, like the decorations at department stores, the definition of "Christmas Time" keeps getting pushed back sooner and sooner and lasting longer and longer. Now, "The Holiday Season" begins in September and ends in January.

Well this year, I think what happened is that everyone did as they normally did -- scheduled for Christmas -- oblivious to the fact that everyone else was doing the same damn thing, and all of a sudden there's a crisis. "Oh shit, you mean GTA4, Half-Life 2, Metroid Prime 2, Halo 2, AND OurGameX are coming out in the same week? Crap! How did this happen? Lets shuffle around some deadlines... release a week later.. a week earlier.. a month earlier... and so forth."

It really just comes down to some crappy planning based on the stagnangy of marketing philosophies. Releasing during the holidays is "safe"... even though tons of other games are coming out... I dont know if you can hear it, but my eyes are rolling back in my head right now.

At any rate, I think there is some light at the end of the tunnel. From rumblings that I hear, you'll probably start to see more games released mid-year than before to avoid just this sort of thing. Nintendo has been doing this for a long time. They'll step out the release of their awesome first party titles throughout the year to avoid a pile-up at Christmas... like intelligent people.

That's just my theory, though. I'm sure someone involved in marketing would be able to help you out much better than I could.

~ Dodger


I'll post more good ones if I get them.

-Gabe out

One more

Mon, September 06 2004 - 9:47 PM
by: Gabe

This was the other explanation I heard a few times. I’ve gone ahead and removed the name of the developer again.

I will add this to your friend's sage advice. Most companies are publicly traded and having a big Q4 (4th quarter) is good to inspire stock sales for the following year. Remember company success is no longer based on something as easy to track as good sales. It is also largely linked to this mysterious thing known as consumer confidence. The consumer strangely enough is not the person who lays down the cash at the check out stand of the local Wal- Mart, no they are the ones who lay down their money at the local online stock trader. True a lot of a companies clout is based on sales but people look at the year end and there is only one time where a developer can salvage a year end and that is in the months leading up to Christmas. Again sales to you do not matter at this time. More so the publisher's sales to Best Buy matter as they front the money for the product and will reclaim said money later for product not sold in their stores also known as sell through. This allows for the negatives to be placed nicely in Q1 when the public has not realized what kind of smoke and mirrors were laid in front of them to get them to buy stock.

~Chuck

-Gabe out

...there is no current online support, there will be LAN support...have to wait until next year for some announcements about the online support for GT4, as cryptic as that may be...

...Kazunori Yamauchi stated that the feature was almost done, but since the rest of the game is basically finished, they want to go ahead and release the game without the online component for now...